Stanford's court-appointed receiver, Ralph Janvey, said in a statement Tuesday that he plans to file such a proposal this week. He wants to unfreeze all accounts of any size not related to Stanford International Bank certificates of deposit, or to Stanford companies, shareholders, directors and certain employees. Those accounts would remain frozen as the investigation continues.

A decision could come as early as today, according to one attorney involved in the case.

The Wyly family has 24 accounts, involving "millions of dollars," affected by the Stanford freeze, said William Brewer, an attorney for the brothers. The Wyly holdings do not contain the CDs in question.

"At the end of the day, they won't lose a dime," Brewer said.

Some Matejek Family Foundation holdings include the CDs, according to court filings. Merit Energy, with $1.8 billion in revenue, was No. 12 last year on The Dallas Morning News' list of the largest private companies in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Scott Gladden, Matejek's attorney, said his client's dealings with Stanford involved only Matejek's personal assets and those of his foundation. Merit Energy has never had any investments with any Stanford affiliate, Gladden said.

Nen played for the Rangers in 1993 and had several multimillion-dollar years with the San Francisco Giants at the end of his career, when he was one of the top relief pitchers in the major leagues.

Court filings show that five Nen family trust accounts hold more than $250,000 apiece.

Nen's attorney, Michael Quilling, said he expects the trust accounts eventually to be unfrozen, but he said Nen did purchase a CD - "in excess of $100,000" - from Stanford's Antigua bank.

"I've told people that they should consider it lost," Quilling said of the CD investments. Quilling said he represents eight clients who are trying to get accounts unlocked.

'Dire' situation

Early this month, Janvey, the receiver, called the financial condition of Stanford "dire" and said there was a "growing likelihood that claims will far exceed assets." He estimated that Stanford had a total of about 35,000 customer brokerage accounts with assets exceeding $6 billion. The court unlocked accounts with less than $250,000, about a third of the total number, beginning Monday.

Stanford opened its Dallas office at the Crescent in 2005. One focus was private wealth management, but it also did other work.

Stanford was one of several approved broker-dealers used by Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport from early 2007 through Jan. 31 of this year, said airport spokesman David Magana. In that span, the airport purchased a few government securities through Stanford, but it decided that Stanford did not offer a wide-enough range of products and ended the relationship.

"The termination did not relate to any of the current allegations against the firm," Magana said. He said no airport funds were affected by the Stanford freeze.

Senate inquiry

The Wylys' connection to Stanford comes through Dallas broker Louis Schaufele III, who began working with the family in the early 1990s while with another firm.

He was a central figure in a U.S. Senate subcommittee investigation into tax haven abuses, which culminated in a 2006 hearing and nearly 400-page report. More than 280 pages of the report were devoted to the Wylys.

Schaufele testified at the hearing and is frequently mentioned in the report as an enabler of the Wylys' offshore scheme, which, the subcommittee investigation said, shielded about $190 million in stock-option- and warrant-related income from U.S. taxes.

According to the report, Schaufele began working with the Wylys' offshore accounts in 1992, while he was at Credit Suisse First Boston. The accounts moved with him when he moved to Lehman Brothers and then Bank of America.

Bank of America closed the accounts at the end of 2004, the report said. A major issue was the secrecy of the identities of the account holders. The accounts were then moved to a bank on the Isle of Man, where they remain, Brewer said.

Brewer said his clients did nothing wrong in the offshore case. "The debate should be about changes in the tax code, not about whether the behavior of the Wylys was anything but appropriate," he said.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who was then the ranking minority member of the subcommittee that investigated the Wylys, introduced a bill early this month that would restrict the use of offshore tax havens.

None of the Wylys' Stanford-related accounts have anything to do with the offshore accounts, Brewer said.

Other executives

Two other Dallas securities executives - Lori Bensing and Virgil Harris - were mentioned in the subcommittee report. They worked with Schaufele on the offshore accounts at Bank of America and moved to Stanford with Schaufele in April 2005.

Schaufele and Bensing did not return calls seeking comment. Harris, who also worked with Schaufele at Lehman, according to the report, could not be located.

Schaufele is also the treasurer and chairman of the investment committee of the Episcopal Foundation of Dallas, according to the group's Web site.

William Madden, chairman of the Episcopal Foundation, said that none of the group's funds have ever been invested with Stanford.

The Wyly brothers made their fortune building companies such as Sterling Software, Maverick Capital, Bonanza Steakhouse and Michaels Stores. They are major contributors to philanthropic causes, including the new Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre at the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts.

Sam Wyly's recent autobiography is titled 1,000 Dollars & an Idea: Entrepreneur to Billionaire.

Staff researchers Molly Motley and Darlean Spangenberger contributed to this report.